In Loving Memory of Judy Tarro

ISN Artist and ISN News Guide Assistant

Howdy! I am Judy, and I am also known as Aunt Judy or Jude. I live in the beautiful mountain community of Tehachapi, California. I am a forty-plus-year scleroderma survivor.

Diagnosed in 1956 when I was twelve years old, I have had a lifetime of learning. My parents were smart. I was treated no differently than my healthy sister and was raised thinking scleroderma was no big deal. I learned to adjust my daily life to the disease's peculiarities.

I did have some physical limitations, so after graduating from high school, instead of applying at the NBA, I got a job in an office. Way back when (the 1960s, now there was a fun decade!) I was one of the first trained in IBM computers. Computers, what fun! I learned keypunching and made a career out of data entry. I do know my way around a keyboard.

I put in thirty years (Yikes! Sounds like a sentence, doesn't it?) at a keyboard before the scleroderma decided that was enough. I was battling fatigue and carpal tunnel, among other things. Each day was a struggle. So, after talking to my doctor, I went on disability. That was over ten years ago and it was the best thing I ever did.

Now, there aren't enough hours in the day. I am very busy. My scleroderma has worsened. Among other things, I have pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension, so I am now on oxygen continually, and frustrating as it is, it too is manageable. What do I do to keep busy? I am doing some geneaological research on my family's roots. This has been a decade-long search with no end in sight. And, of course, I "play" with my computer.

I am co-owner/moderator of an email list for other scleroderma/autoimmune disease patients, SD World. I also am a miniaturist. I built and am furnishing my very own one-inch-scale dollhouse. I know, I know. But, I never got one as a child and now I can fulfill that wish. I fashioned and designed some of the furniture in it and built the rest from kits.

In Loving Memory of Judy Tarro

The nonprofit International Scleroderma Network thanks Gene and Shelley Ensz for their comprehensive donation to provide research, support, education and awareness for scleroderma and related illnesses, in loving memory of Judy Tarro. She fell down a few days ago and did not recover from it. She gracefully led our online community through some extremely difficult and challenging times. She is founder of sdworld.org, and SD World email list. She has suffered from systemic scleroderma since she was 12 years old and has been on oxygen for many years now. We will send sympathy cards to her sister for donations in her memory from the nonprofit International Scleroderma Network, at https://www.sclero.org/, where Judy has also been an ISN Artist and Assistant News Guide for many years. Her story of living with scleroderma is featured in the ISN's book, Voices of Scleroderma Volume 3. Posted 05/07/09. (Also see Donate in Memory and Judy Tarro)

Welcome Judy Tarro: ISN New or Renewing Member

Giving Assistant
United Way of Central New Mexico
United Way of Snohomish County
See ISN News for recent donors, including Pam Hop, Margaret Roof, Winifred Schillberg, Arnold Slotkin, and Juliet Youkhana. Plus donations in honor of Kim Thwaits, and in loving memory of Marta Marx, Jim Miller, and Arlene Marie Petulla.Click Here to Donate or Shop
or click on the floating green DONATE sclero.org button.

SCLERO.ORG is the world leader for trustworthy research, support, education and awareness for scleroderma and related illnesses, such as pulmonary hypertension. We are a service of the nonprofit International Scleroderma Network (ISN), which is a 501(c)(3) U.S.-based public charitable foundation, established in 2002. Meet Our Team, or Volunteer. Donations may also be mailed to: